generally doing a lot of thinking about engineering. >> host: what is engineering? >> guest: that's a good question. that is really what motivated my first book. i packed this as an engineer and if a neighbor asked me what is engineering, i really didn't have any there. so i thought the best way to develop would be too made up of. i found readiness by best way of thinking. so my first book is what is engineering and i have to admit i didn't go in to 200 i say really was a mean when i pressure on their engineers, some people confuse it with science and say it's just a branch of science or applied science. it is a lot more than that.

one distinction is that i am studies what is giving things that authority been manufactured. but first there is no solution to take off the shelf. engineering has a large element that dignity to it and that distinguishes engineering from science or technology as an abstract. some engineering to me, if i had to give a single sentence definition of reengineering is the avoidance of failure. >> host: must be both hate engineering is building things. >> guest: at his building things. we want those to be successful. in other words, not to fail. how do we design things to work that way. i think a lot about failure and

what could go wrong, we are seeing somewhere around malaysia we don't expect to know where, there're so many things that are beginning to be taught why wasn't this anticipated? that's good engineering. good engineering is that you don't let it get lost. have safeguards built in, even if there's people involved don't want to bring the plane down deliberately. there should be features that we are seeing some of that even though the plane went off course we are not in control. >> host: that takes us to the most reese and book to design understanding fa

under this rush-hour traffic. sometimes the bridge guy with a lot of rejects dimples. they consider the bridge representative of creations. >> host: what happened? >> guest: i would say we know certain things that went wrong. the tee, when a bridge collapses, all the evidence is really made a tangle. there are a lot of theories about what went wrong.

if they are going to talk about things in a scientific way, have a hypothesis we have to test, and then he says this will put wrong that were to an. had he proved that? had to summon all the evidence you can argue in my and you can't reversely prove one in particular because the one way you might be able to is to build we built the rich exactly as it was. but that is virtually possible because we don't know what affections were built into the bridge. figure one material and other materials. also subproblems. my shorthand there is we can propose all these ideas in the

habit or pose, but what ultimately happened and wants to number now. a lot of these failures, one was in her late time in the slates that hold a lot together were thinner than they should have been. that doesn't mean they were the cause of the failure. after all it stood for several decades. usually design failures happen right away. the question of maintenance and not is probably true and there are some that became too bad, for example she's physically attaches. they should have been paid

attention to and repaired or replaced. that didn't happen. there are causes take it. in the evidence. it is overwhelming, so it is a paradox to have so much evidence that we can't and the needle in the case. >> host: nurse association of mush in the even sneers and may give america's infrastructure usually d. >> host: the american society of which i have on them data mostly civil engineers to do a lot of work and infrastructure. i have some issues with a. there is a vested interest in the infrastructure that is in perhaps the worst can -- and. i hang that we look at the

picture and how a few actions of the minneapolis bridge, how a few the infrastructure is not in the attaches a summit the others. of course, the caution as if we never invest in a another replaced element of it, then that will be a set. so if you read the report card he will say in what is likely to have been if we sit on our hands and a newly named, then i would say it is probably accurate. the graces we all know are some checked it whether it is safe erd. >> host: in your book, you also talk about deepwater

horizon. >> host: the deepwater horizon is an interesting case. it interested me in it. it was a very complicated issue and it involved a lot of politics. some of the other cases -- cases involve politics. obviously, it is an engineering project in the semis merciful offshore drilling rig and operated and maintained in so forth. obviously the engineers came in from a lot of default. syracuse had been negligent in tow for in the shoes of design. the following piece in real-time is very interest and because

although they seemed there was an engineering problem, the scientists got involved for bilateral and the department of engineering was sent down to houston and was going to solve the problem. that was a colossal and various. the science got in the way of engineering. the environmental protection agency ask upon involved later in the data. this page after the oil had returned to be contained in the environmental protection agency said he had to clean out all of this oil. that became very confusing.

exactly how much oil did escape? i write about that. in large part to demonstrate how the engineering get very much confused in the external in loans says. engineering of course operates within a political environmental climate. but when there's a loss of purse active, we are really trying to wonders and how we can stop it from hot name in these other issues get in the way. >> i don't mean to leave you with this question, but the use of the word forgive in your title and the mention there is always a punitive stage when a disaster catastrophe happen, are you sick of seeing that there

should not be a punitive stage? >> guest: no, the word forgive in my first book was a play on the alexander pope line. the word forgive came in and was forced for that reason. at first punitive vast tax, there is a long history as far back as i know in my first book i quote the quoted hammurabi which goes back 2500 years or more entity older built to house and the house collapse on the owner killed the owner, the idea of an eyesore and i was part of the building code in hammurabi's

time. so it is nothing new. i have a chat or near the god the exact chapter title. in fact it's about the minneapolis bridge and one of the reasons these failures get complicated in assigning the cause is the lawyers get involved and of course another lawyers get involved there is one side, and opposing side and some cases you evidence is sealed so you don't know exactly what happened in and you can't know it happened of the evidence that the outcome of which could years or more. so the legal aspect and rightly so i don't mean to say it should be there because after all there should be some liability. there should be a determination

of whether this was malicious or negligent in not is for trials correctly are for. >> host: we hear from politicians, there petroski. we need more sign, technology, someone in the field. >> host: that is another tough question because there are two sides to it. engineers themselves a real people are engineers. there's more pay for engineers. so there is a pressure to keep numbers down scarce see with what the market determine. those who employ engineers would like to keep price down so they want more engineers. in the whole i think it is hard to do their question. specific cases where you have a certain kind of engineer with a

certain task that there might be one correct answer rather than another. generally speaking, i am hesitant to say that necessarily needs more engineers. >> host: has technology in the last 30 years changed professionally? >> guest: i think just about every professionally. rise of the internet, computer modeling, not that these things didn't exist 30 years ago. it is just that they have become so pervasive. here it duke we had a freestanding engineering library 30 years ago. unless i use to love the library, issues of journals and

trade magazine. but i began to realize i was doing more and more about reading online. it was more and more readily accessible. i can order copies of articles and it really was the way the future was going to go. so just been a poster for the the sake of up nation was not irrational or is on. the space in the engineering building was much more valuable for classroom hop system laboratories and for books. it just was a fact of life. so now all of the engineering books are the main library and we very seldom have to visit them because all of them are available online or get it delivered. easily. >> host: i want to ask you about your previous book. what are the books? book on the bookshelf.

what it's about? >> guest: depauw have books items dortch, shelled over time? the idea came from -- i have developed a reputation high this time i'm in the late i suppose. i had the book with a history of the earth paperclip and i have become to develop a certain reputation. it's time to read another's evil thing in mentioning the new topic. i'm sitting in the daddy, looking around for something simple. the book is a little more complicated. but the book shelf cop my eyes. the shop itself at first i thought the bridge on that side

of the foot case. maybe there's an engineering to that, to write a book about that. the first thing i did was looking into whether there was a book with about it. fortunately we have a very good library and i was able to literally go when emma got books that popped up first in a search. so i thought this is some and i will write about. and you can't write about something like that in isolation that the whole point of so much of my readiness to put things in terms to understand how they don't exist simply in the abstract. so i had to go for what proceeded to come the scrolls, for example should be part of the intranet to read chapter. when you start talking about

shoving books, having a catalogue of works either as been fascinated by an anecdote i long ago. they were chained, libraries. it turned out it was because books are so scarce back then before printing. but i thought would make for an interesting study. so i began to look more and more into the history of starry books that turned out to be a very interesting story. there even engineers involved. it is a central topic in the building and its book stacks were designed and that prompted

me to really get going. >> host: finally, professor petroski, what is on the cover? >> guest: that's an interesting story. when i was first presented by the publisher thought this is not about aids. it is about bigger things. i do have a little chat during their to talk about some things are meant to be broken. it contains until a chick is ready to break out of at the same time it is a very wonderful package, very hard to crack it from the outside.

>> host: henry petroski, professor of civil engineering and a professor of history here at duke university. you are watching booktv here on c-span2.